Genesis data survives

[Brian G Turner]

Material has been found still intact inside the crashed Genesis space capsule, say Nasa scientists.
Experts said on Friday they hoped the mission to gather solar wind particles could still be largely successful.

"We should be able to meet many, if not all, of our primary science goals," said physicist Roger Wiens of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Wednesday's crash-landing in Utah has been blamed on a faulty battery.



The precise nature of the particles could tell scientists how the Sun and the planets grew out of a huge cloud of gas and dust 4.5 billion years ago.


More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3646154.stm

 

[Princess Ivy]

But they cannot cure Aids, haven't fully charted our oceans and cannot combat drought, famine or floods. They cannot accurately predict Weather, nor volcanic erruptions. Yes I know they are working on these, but honestly, couldn't they sort out problems closer to home before trying to figure out how the planet was made? What are they going to do with the info anyway? make a new earth?
(good idea, mental note to file away for a rainy afternoons thought)

 

[polymorphikos]

They are doing all of these things at once. The key is balance. By slowly unravelling the larger mysteries of the universe, whilst working on practical problems (the NASA budget sounds big, but is miniscule in comparison with other departments, and NASA itself is constantly short of cash), eventually everything will become a great deal clearer. Whilst I am of the mins that there is no real deep answer, no "Unified Theory" or meaning of life, and that everything is fairly cool in spite of this, I still say it is best to attack on all fronts. When it comes to humans, curiosity is the nature of the beast.

 

[Princess Ivy]

The meaning of life has already been answered. its fourty-two! and yes, I know that departments such as the military have far more funding than NASA, however, there is no correlation in the various reasearch fields, and jokes aside, everything in this universe IS connected. My point is that I find it hard to be excited about space dust when there is a pandemic loose on the planet which we really don't understand very well at all.

 

[polymorphikos]

AIDS is constantly being analysed. We're working on it. Is there really anything else we can do?

I think that more desalination plants should be built in Africa, by the way. Internationally funded ones. If every first-world country chipped-in a few million, then hey-presto, no more drought. Worked for the Saudis.

I'm glad about the Genesis, too. I just realised that this thread has had scant to do with it. Sorry.

 

[Princess Ivy]

I'm glad about the Genesis, too. I just realised that this thread has had scant to do with it. Sorry.

I am also, just like to make sure that we don't get so worked up about 'up there' that we forget about whats 'down here'

 

[Brian G Turner]

Even though the answers to the invidual questions themselves may not be entirely relevant to various other human issues, the development of the technology to atually address such questions can often be applied elsewhere. Hopefully.

 

[aftermath]

Wow. It only took 80 seconds from when it entered the atmosphere to hit earth. It takes me longer to walk up the stairs

 

[Brian G Turner]

Lol!

 

[Rane Longfox]

Faulty Batteries? Did no one tell them not to use duracell?